Introduction
Introduction The Biographical Environment of Titus et Gesippus In the summer of 1545, when he was about twenty-eight, John
Foxe resigned the fellowship which he had held for seven years in Magdalen College, Oxford. Many biographies, including the earliest, which purports to be by a son of Foxe,! have contended that Foxe was forced to resign, though the official register states that he (and five others) resigned willingly for sufficient cause.?
There is no question that Foxe felt pressure of some sort, from his colleagues if not from his superiors, for among his papers is the draft of an appeal to the President of Magdalen, Owen Oglethorpe, against some anonymous detractors. They had accused him of such improprieties as missing Mass in order to read books, and laughing during services—indeed, all of the charges apparently were concerned with Foxe's religious practices. Some charges Foxe admits, usually offering extenuations; some he denies. But fundamentally he feels that he is being unfairly persecuted:
My life has many flaws and several vices which deserve, not only an overseer, but also a castigator. But it is one thing to castigate a life and 1 Tt survives in manuscript in British Museum Lansdowne MS. 388, ff. 2-51v; its Latin text was edited, with an English translation (slightly modified in places), in the Introduction to The Second Volume of the Ecclesiasticall History: Containing the Acts and Monuments of Martyrs (London, 1641). Traditionally thought to be by Samuel Foxe, but widely distrusted as spurious since the nineteenth century, the Life has been plausibly defended as the work of John Foxe's other son,
Simeon, by J. F. Mozley, John Foxe and His Book (London, 1940), pp. 1-11.
2 See Dictionary of National Biography. Mozley (p. 25), however, interpreted this
(following Anthony à Wood) as indicating a resignation to avoid expulsion. My brief memoir of Foxe's life depends largely on these two sources and on the manuscript letters in Lansdowne MS. 388.
INTRODUCTION
another to hunt for crimes. If pious men do it out of love, I certainly applaud their pious and honest motives. But why so anxiously, I wonder, why so curiously do they pry into my life? or why into my life alone and not also into others'? Is it because others do not have faults, or because these people love only me? Far from it. Rather it's because they do not hate others, do not wish to harm them. For they do wish to harm me, not to do me a kindness.
As Foxe sees it, their motive is that they suspect him of following a "certain new religion," because he is an avid reader of scriptures
(sacris literis). But he emphatically denies their suspicion: "One faith, one truth, one Jesus Christ, one salvation of the whole world:
I neither belong to nor follow any other sect."? We may doubt the ingenuousness of this statement, of course; in admitting, for instance, that he sometimes missed formal services, he asserts that, like St. Basil, he was reading as a form of prayer— and here I would argue with them about the true mode of praying." *
Whether there is any direct connection between the circumstances described in this appeal and Foxe's departure from Magdalen cannot be determined. But the church of Henry VIII in 1545 was substantially the same as the Roman church had been in 1525, except for its head, and Foxe was antipathetic to that church throughout his life. Whether Foxe was forced out or not, then, we may well
3 Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 56r-v: *Habet vita mea, confiteor, flagitia multa vitiaque plurima, quae non modo observatorem sed et castigatorem desiderant: verum aliud est castigare vitam, aliud venari crimina. Quod si zelo faciant pii homines, pios profecto praetextus et honestos laudo. Sed quaeso, cur tam anxie, cur tam curiose in vitam inquirunt meam? aut cur solum in meam, in aliorum non item? An quia caeteri non habent crimina, aut me solum isti diligant?
Minime. Sed quia caeteros non oderunt, non uolunt laedere. Mihi quia fauere nolunt, volunt laedere.
... quia me suspicantur nouae cujusdam religionis esse. ... Quid ergo? Quia frequentiorem me in sacris literis uident. ... Vnna
[sic] fides, vna ueritas, vnus Iesus Christus, vna salus totius mundi: aliam ego factionem nec sector nec affecto." This and other Foxe letters are somewhat inaccurately printed in Josiah Pratt, "'Life of the Martyrologist,"
The Church Historians of England: Reformation Period: The Life and Defence of john Foxe, Y, Pt. 1
(London, 1870), Appendix XVIII, pp. 56]-[65.
^ Lansdowne MS. 388, ff. 53v-54: "Sed dicitis missarum tempore me libris incumbere: si arguitis omnino, nego; si interdum, fateor; sed sacris tamen, quorum ego lectionem precationi, ne uacillet animus, intermisceo; quemadmodum et Basilius ille magnus consueuit: ibique de uero precandi modo cum illis contenderem." The old Life of Foxe claims that Foxe had already undergone conversion, but concealed it out of fear of the Six Articles.
INTRODUCTION
believe that many in the College were happy to have him go. Presumably President Oglethorpe was among them, for he was an ecclesiastical conservative: later Oglethorpe was preferred to a bishopric under Queen Mary; still later, though he crowned Queen
Elizabeth (when senior bishops made themselves unavailable), he regretted the act throughout his life.» Apparently Foxe was not himself unhappy at going, for, though he later maintained a warm interest in the College, in the letters of 1545 he calls Oxford a prison
(Collegiorum haec ergastula) and a cloister (haec Collegiorum coenobia) and, in describing his disaffection to a friend, is reduced to clichés:
"All things that glitter are not gems; you don't know how the shoe pinches me here.''6
The specific reason which Foxe gives for leaving is that to retain his followship he must, under the statutes of the College, enter holy orders by Michaelmas, 1545. Some have claimed that the rule was not always insisted on in other cases,' and that may be so, but Foxe's references to the rule do not allege discrimination. In rejecting the "priestly business"
(presbiteralem),® he uses language far more personal, more overtly sexual. To one Dr. Hensey of Exeter he explains, ""Under a statute of our College, I may not stay here beyond Michaelmas unless—unless I would castrate myself and plunge into the priestly sort'';? and he tells a friend named Hedley,
"Michaelmas is drawing near, and you know the force of our statute; and I am not of a mind to be circumcised this year."!?
How much of his hostility to the priesthood was personal and how much ideological I do not know, but the combination, in his images, of being emasculated and of undergoing a non-Christian rite suggests that both factors were 1n his mind. It is interesting, therefore, to find him telling Hensey in a later letter that he would accept a "priestly and shaven crown if either you were the bishop who could see IDS ING Jee $ Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 117.
7 See Mozley, pp. 24-25.
® Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 82.
® Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 8ov: Neque enim hic ultra Michaelis statuto collegii nostri commorari licebit, nisi, nisi in sacerdotale genus memet castrari ac praecipitare velim."
1? Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 117: Michaelis iam festum appetit, et nosti statuti nostri decretum, neque libet mihi hoc anno circumcidi."
INTRODUCTION
give it to me or I were so tolerant of cold that I thought I could get one by such a great loss of hair." But we should not take this too seriously, for Foxe admits that he is joking, with a pun on the crown
(money) which Hensey has sent him.H Once Foxe had made up his mind, after what he claimed was a careful weighing of the pros and cons,!* he wrote to a number of acquaintances asking them for help in finding a job. The letters to Hensey and Hedley were a part of that correspondence; drafts of letters also survive addressed to (John?) Tindall, to John Cheke, and to one Richard Benetus.? Apparently there were other letters which have not survived, for Foxe tells Tindall that Hugh Latimer has asked him to stay with him for a few months;!^ Foxe has turned down this opportunity because he is intent on getting a teaching position in a school or (as he says in other letters) as a tutor: remuneration is not important ("by nature I am a great despiser of money and ambition"!5), and if all else fails he will become a bishop of sheep.1!$ Apparently Foxe had less than overwhelming success with his applications. As we can judge from Foxe's later replies, Hensey sent him a crown (five shillings) along with the news that Exeter
(whether the Oxford College or the School in Devon is not clear, though Foxe uses the term scholae) had just hired a teacher and that Hensey's personal circumstances did not permit him to take another mouth into his family.as a tutor;" and Hedley sent him advice,
H Lansdowne MS. 388, f..82: *Scholasticorum auiditatem vt non defendo, ita nec coronam recuso tuam (vir liberal[issime]); quam neque ita rursus affecto sordide vt non multo tamen libentius presbiteralem illam rasamque quam tu appellas sim recepturus, si aut tu episcopus esses qui posses mittere, aut ego tam frigoris patiens ut tanta pilorum jactura mihi accersendum arbitrarer (patere vicissim jocari tecum).
12 Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 117.
?? Lansdowne MS. 388, ff. 119r-v, 111 and 118, and 83v. The reading Benetus is doubtful, but seems much more likely than *'Beritius" (i.e., Richard Bertie), the reading of Pratt (p. [63). I follow Mozley (p. 18), who also suggests Benitius.
4 Lansdowne MS. 388, f£. 119v. The whereabouts of Latimer, who had earlier resigned as Bishop of Worcester, are unknown at this time (D. N. B.).
1 Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 8ov: Stipendium nullum capto, pecuniarum ac ambitionis semper natura contemptor maximus."
'* Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 117: "Si scholae praefecturam nusquam contingat adipisci, equidem fiam alicubi Episcopus ouium."
1" Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 82: "Scholae Exoniensi praefectum esse honestum
INTRODUCTION
which Foxe firmly rejected, to reconsider his decision.!? Foxe did get a job, though, as the tutor at Charlecote, Warwickshire, to the son of William Lucy—Thomas Lucy, whose deer the young Will
Shakespeare is alleged to have poached more than forty years later.
In his letter to Tindall, Foxe describes a two-day visit to Charlecote, presumably to be interviewed, and he rhapsodizes about the people there:
I do not so much approve of as marvel at the character and manners of the man [William Lucy]: I never in my life saw a man more splendid and golden. And the household is altogether like its head, so pleasing that I long for one just like it. In sum, there is nothing which is not up to the taste and sentiment of my spirit.
In the event, Foxe found further reason for happiness at Charlecote, for he met Agnes Randall there and married her in 1547. But the physical environment seems to have been another matter, as Foxe describes it in the same letter:
You know the house is totally isolated, almost completely shut off by mountains from the light of day and the traffic of men. Besides, it has a bordering stream, but its waters are almost always stagnant—except that once a year it washes the house itself as the Nile does Egypt. Finally,
Faulkner [presumably Foxe's predecessor] has a little room which smells so unsavory, not of a goatish armpit but of the privy, that whoever lives there should have his nose cut off.!?
In any case, Foxe did not stay at Charlecote long. By the summer of 1547 he was in London, according to the old biography a fugitive because of his Protestant views. There he almost perished until a virum gaudeo. ... De familia quod scribis facile accipio excusationem tuam, agnosco enim temporum horum tempestates et angustias."
18 Lansdowne MS. 388, f. 117.
19 Lansdowne MS. 388, f. r1gr-v: *... hominis ingenium ac mores non tam probo quam admiror, quo numquam in vita quicquam vidi magis candidum ac magis aureum. Nec minus illa placet capiti suo respondens per omnia familia, talis qualem optare queam, denique nihil non ad votum atque sententiam animi mei faciens. Sed nosti domum illius situm quam vndique deserta, montibus lucisque ab omni pene luce hominumque confluxu interclusa. Deinde vicinum habet amnem quidem, sed vndis perpetuo ferme stagnantibus, nisi quod singulis annis semel domum ipsam perluit, ut Nilus Aegiptum. Postremo habet Fauknerus cubiculum quod non hircum sed cloacam olet tam insuaviter, ut opus sit exectis
-naribus quisquis ibi habitare velit."